


Down The Rabbit Hole

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [56]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, "I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it." (Ferris Bueller's Day Off)"</p><p>Tyler wants to know about the Stargate and the Gene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down The Rabbit Hole

Tyler knew that he had all of the men captive when they were slumped in the den at Casa Atlantica One (Rodney and John’s house was now known as Two, or, Tyler suspected, Too). They’d finished moving all of John and Rodney’s stuff into their house, and the final piece, the last item was Rodney’s dead grandmother’s grand piano. Cam and Rodney had spent a good long time looking over the blueprints of the house and coming up with the best way to get the piano into the house without overly-straining the moving crew (Evan, JD, John, and Tyler) and without damaging the piano.

And now, now Tyler’s arms and legs felt like wet noodles, but he was younger than them, had more energy than them. So he stood in front of them, planted his hands on his hips, and declared:

“I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it.”

John, who’d been dozing on Rodney’s shoulder, blinked blearily. “What?”

Cam frowned. “Did you just quote _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_?”

“Tell me,” Tyler said, “about the Stargate and The Gene.”

To his vast disappointment, none of them looked shocked. Instead, they exchanged looks, like they’d known this was coming, and they were prepared. Tyler suspected Evan’s hand in it all.

“Your lead, Cam,” JD said.

Cam nodded. “Tyler, you’re eighteen, and legally an adult. You’re still our son, and you’re still young -”

“Older than JD when he found out.”

“Not quite,” JD said. “But if you decide to go through with this, you’ll see what I mean.”

Cam leaned forward, caught Tyler’s gaze and held it. Tyler gazed steadily back at him. “What you’re asking is big. It’s a life-altering decision. No, what happened to us won’t happen to you from the mere fact of you knowing. But your world will change. If you like your world the way it is, if you feel like you understand it, that it’s generally safe and predictable, then forget you ever heard about the Stargate and the Gene. If you feel like you’re ready for a whole new world, then we can proceed.”

Tyler lifted his chin. “I want to know.” He wanted to understand what was going on with JD, why he wasn’t like any other kid Tyler had ever known, why he was wiser and older than any of the toughest, most street-savvy kids Tyler had met, the ones who’d been runaways for months on end and done hard time.

(And whenever Tyler thought of runaways, he couldn’t help but think of Damien, who’d gone missing right before Thanksgiving and hadn’t been found, had gone AWOL from his placement. Tyler was afraid he hadn’t survived the winter. No one would admit their fears about Damien out loud.)

“If you want to know,” Cam said, “there’s some paperwork you have to fill out first.”

Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Paperwork?”

“What you want to know is highly classified.”

Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Which is why some housewife at the supermarket knows about it and some scientist just blurted it out.”

“Zelenka is fully aware of the consequences of his actions,” Rodney said. He was Zelenka’s boss.

“As for ‘some housewife’,” JD said, an edge to his tone that made Tyler flinch, “she also had to sign the paperwork you have to sign.”

Evan glanced at his watch. “They should still have a JAG officer around at the Mountain. Let me go make a call.” And he stepped out of the room.

“Have a seat,” John said. “This could take a while.”

Tyler obeyed warily.

“I didn’t know at first either,” John said. “I had to sign paperwork, same as you. I get it. Knowing that everyone else but me in the house was in on some big secret was frustrating, but I did a lot of classified work myself, so I respected that. I guess, because you’re family, we got a little careless.”

“Zelenka got drunk.” Rodney looked irritated at the mere memory.

“And that woman at the grocery store,” Cam said quietly, “is Uncle Jack’s ex-wife.”

Tyler looked at John. “I thought you didn’t get to tell your wife classified stuff. That was why you got divorced.”

Rodney raised his eyebrows.

John winced. “Nancy and I got divorced for a whole lot of reasons. She had trouble with the whole classified thing, it’s true.”

“Sara got to know because, kind of like you, things happened to her without her sticking her nose where she shouldn’t,” JD explained. “And she signed the paperwork. She probably assumed you know because you live with us. You’re not the only kid who knows, after all.”

Tyler perked up at that. “Who else knows?” Anyone at school?

“Cassie,” JD said. “Cassie Frasier.”

“The one who’s a med student?”

JD nodded. “She’s known since she was, what, thirteen?”

“You’d know better than we would,” Rodney said, and wait, Cassie was like twenty-five. When she was thirteen, JD would have been...seven?

Evan came back into the den. “Major Cartwright is on her way.”

She’d been Cam’s attorney for the adoption.

Evan sank down on the couch beside JD. “What did I miss?”

“Not much,” JD said. When Evan put his arm around JD’s shoulders, JD scooted closer, leaned in and let Evan play with his hair.

“I’ve rearranged the chore chart,” Evan said, “now that John and Rodney have moved out, although there are some alternate options for when they join us for meals.”

“Which will be every meal,” Cam said, and Rodney shrugged, because it was probably true.

“I can make you two a chore chart if you like,” Evan said, and Rodney made a face.

Evan laughed. “Or not.”

Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang, and Major Cartwright, wearing a blue combat-type uniform, was standing on the doorstep carrying an envelope with a big red CLASSIFIED stamp on it.

“Hey, Tyler,” she said, smiling at him. “Can I come in?”

“Sure. Is that the stuff I have to sign?” Tyler led her into the den.

Naomi nodded. “Yes. So, you decided to take the leap down the rabbit hole after all, huh? We’ll sit down, I’ll talk about this, what it means, you decide if you really want to sign it, and then - then there’s a video you can watch.”

“A video’s better than I got,” John said indignantly.

“Zelenka made it,” Rodney said, and judging by his smug expression, Zelenka hadn’t enjoyed making it.

The stack of paper Naomi pulled out of the envelope was...huge. She went through it page by page, showing him where to sign, where to initial, what each thing meant. And Tyler felt like he was signing his life away. But then he thought of Cam and JD and John and Evan screaming in the night, Evan sleepwalking with his gun in his hand and a haunted, empty look in his eyes, and if they could give their lives away for this, so could he. So he signed. He swore he’d never commit treason, never tell anyone what he knew, and he signed.

His hand was cramped and stiff by the time he signed the last page. Naomi gathered the papers back into the envelope and sat back in the recliner. She handed JD a DVD and said, “Fire it up.”

JD started toward the DVD player, paused. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Nope. Can’t leave the DVD here with you. And I want to see what Radek did.” She grinned.

So JD put the DVD into the Xbox and scrambled back onto the couch, and they all watched.

The video opened with a USAF logo, and then Zelenka standing in front of...a giant metal ring.

“This is a Stargate,” Zelenka said. “It forms stable wormholes that allow for near-instantaneous interplanetary and intergalactic travel.”

The image of Zelenka cut away for a moment, and Tyler stared as water exploded out of the ring and then formed a pool. A vertical pool and didn’t spill. And then people came running out of the water. Tyler recognized Daniel, Sam, that guy T, and Uncle Jack. Bright lights came exploding after them, and a bunch of soldiers were pointing guns at the water. And then the water vanished and the bright lights were cut off, and a man said, from somewhere off-screen, “Welcome back, SG-1.”

The image of Zelenka returned, and he explained aliens who took over people’s brains, aliens who had magic powers, and even little gray men, like the kind who’d landed at Roswell. There were aliens who looked like humans - T was an alien! He had a funky gold tattoo on his forehead and a snake in his stomach!

Cassie was an alien. She’d come through the Stargate from another planet and been adopted by Dr. Frasier, who’d died on an alien planet a few years back.

And JD...was a clone. A clone of Jack O’Neill.

Tyler sneaked a glance at him. There was something in his eyes Tyler couldn’t quite read, but he looked sad. And happy. And amused, watching the Stargate activate. Watching Sam and Rodney almost blow something up in a lab.

Then there were the Ancients, who looked like humans and had a special gene that allowed them to use super-advanced technology. The Ancients had built the Stargates and a bunch of other cool stuff besides. There was a video segment of John and Evan making something glow with just their minds.

“You have the gene too,” Cam said.

When the video ended, JD pulled the DVD out of the Xbox, put it back in its case, and handed it back to Naomi.

“Welcome to the Stargate Program,” she said. “I’m sure there’s more the others can tell you. Later, gentlemen.” She saluted Cam - soldiers in uniform always saluted Cam - and then saw herself out.

“So,” Tyler said to JD, “when you say you’re not a kid -”

“I’m not.”

“And you’re -”

“Almost old enough to be Cam and Evan’s father, yes.”

“So that lady at the supermarket -”

“Is my ex-wife, too.”

“And Charlie?”

“Was my son.” JD closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and Tyler knew not to push any further.

“What about you, Cammie?”

“A few years ago, a Goa’uld tried to attack Earth. I was the leader of an air combat group, flying classified fighter jets that included alien tech, who fought against him,” Cam said.

“We’re not aliens' slaves, so you won, right?” Tyler asked.

Cam looked down at his hands. “I’m the only one of my team who survived.”

Oppie crawled onto his lap, and Cam petted him, hands shaking.

“What about you, Evan?”

“I was on a gate team, like the one you saw on the video. SG-11. I worked a mining operation as a surveyor, looking for the ore we need to build intergalactic battle cruisers and the fighter jets Cam piloted,” Evan said. “There were aliens on the planet. Unas. Giant lizards.”

Tyler remembered Evan freaking out one Halloween, having a total PTSD meltdown. Tyler had been dressed as a lizard man.

“They kidnapped me. Only me and a couple of other guys survived.” Evan smiled crookedly. “Wasn’t worth much as a soldier after that.”

JD leaned over and kissed him. “You’re worth plenty as you are.”

“Rodney?”

“I started off at Area 51, working on gate technology,” Rodney said. “Now I work at the Mountain. We’re still working out ways to combat the Ori, trying to use Ancient tech. Evan and John make great human light switches. And now you will, too.”

“What about JD? Do you have the gene?”

JD pressed his lips into a thin line. “I’m not going back there. That’s not my life anymore. My life is here. With all of you.”

“Can I go through the Stargate?” Tyler asked.

“I’ve never even been,” John said. “The doctors aren’t sure what it’d do to my head.”

“Only gate-rated civilians can go through or, on special occasions, scientists like me, and only then with an army of marines to keep me safe,” Rodney said.

“But you can see it,” Cam said softly. “If you like.”

Tyler nodded faintly. “Yeah. I just - how many times?”

“How many times what?” JD asked.

“How many times has the world almost ended, without anyone knowing?”

“I was the leader of SG-1 for seven years,” JD said, and Tyler remembered the video, the man saying _Welcome back, SG-1_.  “And it nearly ended almost every year. I’m guessing that didn’t change after I left.”

Rodney winced.

Tyler drew in a shaky breath. “I’m gonna need a - a hot minute. To process.”

“If you need to speak to someone,” Evan said, “Dr. Robinson on base is great.”

Tyler nodded, stood up. “Thanks. I’m just gonna -” He ran for the bathroom, lost his lunch.

He was still crumpled on the bathroom floor, forehead pressed against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl, when someone sat down beside him.

“Hey,” John said. “It’s pretty damn rough, isn’t it?”

“How - how are you not freaking out all the time?” Tyler coughed to clear his throat.

John handed him a glass of water. “Because I know what kind of men JD, Cam, Evan, and Rodney are. I know what kind of scientists Sam and Daniel and Zelenka and Jeannie are. And I know they will always protect us. And if push comes to shove, I can stand up and fight. I have the gene. You have it too. We have the power to protect the planet.”

“ _How?_ ” 

John put an arm around his shoulders. “Let me tell you about the Ancient control chair.”


End file.
